When it comes to British place names, Anglo-Saxon origins tend to dominate in the south and Scandinavian languages in the North, mixed in with Old British or Celtic terms for natural features such as hills and rivers. Nottinghamshire still shows the influence of all three factors in the names we find today.
Often towns and villages share common endings such as -tun (settlement), -ham (homestead), -feld (farmland), -by (village), -caester (Roman stronghold), -worthig (enclosure), -dun (hill), -halh (nook of land) – but these usually follow a first element which is much harder to define, especially when a personal name is concerned.
The famous Domesday Book – a land survey commissioned by William the Conqueror and completed in 1086 – shows Nottinghamshire names which have been modernised, but otherwise changed very little in all that time.
To understand where they came from, we went looking in the Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names.
1. Nottingham
The name of Nottingham is Anglo-Saxon in origin. A Saxon chieftain named Snot ruled an area known as Snotingaham in Old English; the homestead of Snot's people (-inga = 'the people of'; -ham = 'homestead'). Photo: Pixabay
2. Mansfield
There is dispute to the origins of the name Mansfield. Three conjectures have been considered - either the name was given to the nobel family of Mansfield who came over with King William the Conqueror, others indicate the name came from Manson, an Anglo Saxon word for traffic and a field meaning a place of trade, or named after the river Maun which runs through Mansfield, the town being built around the river. The market town dates back to the Domesday Book of 1086 where it was listed as Mamesfelde, which literally means "open land by the River Maun." Photo: Mansfield Chad
3. Worksop
Recorded in the Domesday Book, the market town was formerly known as "Wareshope" - thought to derive from the Old English name "Woer" and "hop," meaning an enclosed valley. After this, the town was known as Werchesope; referred to as a manor in the wapentake of Bernesedelawe, or hundred of Bassetlaw. Photo: Worksop Guardian
4. Hucknall
This Ashfield town got its name from the Old English name Ucca, which is a pet form of the Old English personal name Uhtræd. From 1295 until 1915, the town was known as Hucknall Torkard, taken from Torcard, the name of a dominant landowning family. Signs of the earlier name can be seen on some older buildings. Photo: Hucknall Dispatch